Susan Glaspell's one-act play is a fantastic play to teach. It's not only short, so you don't have to devote a huge chunk of your syllabus to it, but also rich with symbolism and provocative in its assertions about justice and gender. Students usually end up have so much to say about the play.Before I dive into anything, I want to share a heart warming anecdote from my experience teaching this play. After the final exam, one of my male students hung back to talk to me as I was collecting the exams and saying goodbye. He had a story that he wanted to tell me that he had been too embarrassed to share up until that moment. When he was studying for the exam, some friends of his drove to Davis from San Francisco to surprise him. He told them that he couldn't really hang out because he was studying for his English final, so they inquired about the material. When he told them that he was reviewing a play, they proposed that they act out the play together to help him study. So, they had a few beers together, and proceeded to stage an impromptu, private performance of Trifles.If that wasn't adorably dorky enough--apparently, they got REALLY into it, and by the end of the play, all three boys were in tears thinking about poor Mrs. Wright and what she must have been going through to have gotten to the point where she snapped and killed her abusive husband. They were so worried about her and whether she would have to face consequences that her husband would never have had to face.!!!!!How amazing is it that three young men (hopefully all 21 by this time since they were probably also pretty drunk) spent their weekend together bonding over Trifles and thinking deeply about the ways that the justice system can be skewed toward the people who are already in power? God, being a teacher is the best job ever. That student, by the way, aced his final exam.Onward to teaching strategies!So this is another installment of "My Smart Friends," because I have lots of ideas to share with you that come from my friend Tiffany Gilmore, who is a general bad-ass. She is wicked-smart, hilarious, and generous; and she runs the full gamut between irreverently dirty-minded and pristinely proper--the type of lady who could make men blush at a hockey game and then turn around and whip up pistachio macarons that cause Martha Stewart to feel a deep sense of shame because she's been doing wrong all these years.

Original performance of Trifles, with Marjorie Vonnegut, Elinor M. Cox, John King, Arthur E. Hohl, and T.W. Gibson, from The Theatre, Jan. 1917. (From the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center)

The image above is one that Tiffany recommend to me, which you can find on the website for the Susan Glaspell Society. That site, by the way, is a treasure for information about Glaspell and criticism on her works. The photograph is from the first performance of the play, and Tiffany uses it as a spring board into discussion about the play itself. Here's what she has to say about the activity:

I have students read the image before we move into a discussion and I'm always surprised how well that activity goes; someone always gets reading the body language of men taking up space and being important and the women looking down, folded in on themselves in the background as well as the starkness and cold of the setting.

Tiffany also has a paper prompt that puts Trifles in dialogue with Williams' The Glass Menagerie, which I will share in a future post.Tiffany recommends also starting with an in-class writing prompt for the first 10 minutes of class: are the women justified in hiding their findings from the men, why or why not? This generates a really good discussion on justice, versus morality etc. Both Tiffany and I have had the experience that each term some students are adamant that withholding information is absolutely illegal because someone was murdered and some think that--while not exactly legal-- it is at least understandable because Mrs. Wright was at the very least emotionally abused, and her alibi is so weak, that she will probably be found guilty anyway.I like to hold a mock trial for Mrs. Wright, using as "evidence" passages from the play itself--this is good for their papers because students start gathering textual evidence immediately. I divide the classroom into two: a prosecution side that argues for the charge of first degree murder with a death penalty sentence and a defense side that can either argue for innocence ("not guilty by reason of insanity") or for a lesser crime like manslaughter. I usually act as judge, but it could be cool to assign an actual jury in the classroom along with a student judge.My activity differs from Tiffany's because she's asking students to judge Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale whereas I am asking students to judge Mrs. Wright. We might then go to the next logical step and ask students to consider if there is anyone or anything else that we could or perhaps should be judging. Who or what is really on trial in this play?

I just want to thank you for this entry and the idea of a mock trial. I needed a short piece to end the semester and I stumbled across this gem. I've never taught it before and my students are totally engaged in this process. They are citing textual references and creating strong arguments!!!!! The clouds have parted and I have you to thank.